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Opposition Day

[1 st Allotted Day

]

Ethnic Minorities

Madam Speaker : Before I call the first speaker, I should say that I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.

3.37 pm

Mr. Roy Hattersley (Birmingham, Sparkbrook) : I beg to move, That this House, recognising that the ethnic minorities within British society receive less than their fair share of national resources and remain victims of discrimination and prejudice, calls upon the Government to introduce and implement policies which initially reduce and eventually eliminate the disadvantages which are suffered by these British citizens.

The motion was intended to be uncontroversial between the parties. It contains no criticism of the Government's record or policy. It was drafted in the hope--a vain hope, as it turned out--that the House could unite in unanimous agreement about the need to take immediate, decisive action to reduce discrimination against ethnic minorities. The Government have chosen to table an amendment which manages to be simultaneously pious and partisan. It includes sentiments which sit uncomfortably alongside the statements and speeches made by the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) during the general election. We shall vote against the amendment because, in our view, the time for platitudes has passed and the time for action has come. In part, we chose this subject for debate because there is a new Home Secretary. We did so not simply to celebrate his appointment but to express the hope that, at least in this particular, he will do better than his immediate predecessors. It is even possible that we at last have a Conservative Home Secretary--I think, the first for 30 years--who represents a constituency which contains members of the ethnic minority community. If that is the case, he must know the extent of the disadvantage from which these British citizens suffer. It was our hope--it remains our hope, despite the amendment--that he will wish to take action that has previously been neglected but is urgently in the interests of this section of the British public. I emphasise that the motion, and the debate, concern British citizens who are denied the full rights of British citizenship. The facts are indisputable. We know, at one extreme of the social spectrum, that black defendants are denied bail in circumstances in which it would be granted to white suspects. At the other extreme, we know that highly qualified black and Asian job applicants are rejected for no other reason than their racial origins. These are facts which it is painful to repeat because of what they demonstrate about our society, but, unless we acknowledge the existence of the canker, we will not cut it out, and there is no doubt how great the infection is today.

Parliamentary answers given on 22 May this year demonstrate the extent of one form of discrimination. From 1989 to 1991, the average rate of male unemployment was 8 per cent. For white males, it was 7 per cent. For ethnic minorities, it was almost twice that

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figure, at 13 per cent. For men of Indian origin, it was 10 per cent. and for Afro-Caribbeans it was 15 per cent. For men of Bangladeshi and Pakistani stock, it was 21 per cent.

That discrepancy in job opportunities did not result from the ethnic minorities being less motivated or less qualified than white workers. The truth is quite the opposite. The Commission for Racial Equality, reporting last month, analysed job seekers in the labour market and said :

"The proportion of ethnic minorities with higher levels of qualification is slightly higher than the proportion of white people."

Yet, for those in this group--the most highly qualified, the group in which ethnic minorities have superior qualifications to their white contemporaries--their prospects of getting a job are exactly the same, that is, about half that of a white man or woman applying for the same post.

I do not believe that the Home Secretary will dispute that description, for the Government have acknowledged the existence of discrimination in employment. In February, they published a 10-point guide which they said would remedy what they coyly described as the "under representation of the ethnic minorities within the employed population".

Nobody, not even the Government, believes that those guidelines will even scratch the surface of the problem. The question that faces the nation is whether we are prepared for such discrimination to continue or are willing and now ready to initiate decisive action. Timing is vital, because jobs are what the black and Asian British need most. Given a fair chance, given an equal opportunity, they would get their fair share of employment. At the moment, equal opportunity is not available to them.

Highly motivated and unusually talented members of the ethnic minorities fight their way to success, but many of the others are caught in a cycle of double deprivation. They are disadvantaged because they are poor. They are either at the bottom of the earnings league or unemployed. Because of their race and their colour, they are unable to escape from their poverty.

I do not seek to diminish the importance of other policies that are designed to eliminate discrimination. It is, for example, wholly unacceptable, at least to me, that although Catholics, Jews and Quakers can set up denominational schools, Muslims are denied that right. It also seems intolerable to me that some hospitals and some schools do not provide meals that respect the religious needs of their Muslim patients and pupils. However, nothing is so important as providing a chance to escape from poverty, and that requires a radical revision of our employment legislation.

The present law is demonstrably inadequate because it is based on specific complaints by individuals, who have been denied employment or promotion because of their race. The onus should be shifted from isolated actions by victims of discrimination to a general obligation placed on employers. Whether that obligation is fulfilled cannot be calculated in terms of precise numbers. Quotas do not work and will not work, and we do not suggest them as a remedy.

We should require that all employers use their best endeavours to employ a work force who are genuinely representative of their local population. A strengthened Commission for Racial Equality should be empowered to monitor and enforce that process. As the CRE makes clear, that involves monitoring. Unless we know which

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companies employ a genuine cross-section of the population, we will not be able to ensure a fair distribution of resources.

Ethnic monitoring has already been introduced into employment in parts of the health service, initially, I believe, when the the new Home Secretary was Secretary of State for Health. I therefore assume that that means that the Government are not opposed to ethnic monitoring in principle. Monitoring is essential if the ethnic minorities are to receive their fair share of jobs. I emphasise, because it is crucial to the debate, that it is a fair share of jobs that we demand. We do not ask for that form of positive discrimination that guarantees jobs to those who are not qualified to perform them or provides minorities with more than their proper share of national resources. All we ask is that action be taken to ensure that the black and Asian British receive what is rightly theirs--rightly theirs in terms of civil liberties and national resources.

The Government should and could immediately announce that they will no longer enter into contracts with companies that cannot demonstrate that they operate fair employment policies. That policy of contract compliance, as it is called, is no doubt regarded in some parts of the House as a revolutionary assault on the free market, but in America, which I suppose those same parts of the House still regard as the home and haven of free enterprise, contract compliance by Government agencies is taken for granted.

I have heard much talk of employers needing to choose the best employees available to them. I accept that without qualification, but statistics prove that the best candidate is often rejected because he or she is a member of the ethnic minorities. What is more, discrimination is often the product of ignorance rather than of outright prejudice. I am constantly being told that the black and Asian British are unemployed because they lack the necessary skills to obtain jobs. Again, statistics prove that that is palpable nonsense. The Government should encourage decent employers to search more diligently, and a decent Government would organise carefully targeted training programmes to fill the few gaps in the market that really exist.

Yet the Government, who claim in their amendment a determination to promote a multiracial society, have acted to prevent local councils from insisting that their contractors operate fair employment practices. Birmingham city council instructed its contractors to recruit from the areas in which it was working and have on its payroll a proper racial balance. The Government legislated to make that instruction illegal, as a result of which thousands of jobs were denied to the ethnic minorities in the west midlands.

Let no one suggest that in a free society we cannot impose pressures on employers that prevent them from engaging the employees of their absolute and unfettered choice. I have to tell the Home Secretary--I hope that I shall have the opportunity to tell him on many occasions as the next five years progress--that my Muslim and Sikh constituents are wholly unattracted by a theory of liberty that condemns them permanently to second-class status. If our theory of democracy ignores their basic needs, we should not be surprised if one day they reject our theory of democracy.

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We need more positive employment policies because the ethnic minorities need jobs. We also need them to send a message to society. That essential message is easily described. The Government must demonstrate their abhorrence of prejudice and discrimination and their willingness to do more than just talk about such matters and to take action that will bring those evils to an end. The message we need to send out is that the black and Asian British are citizens of this country and should enjoy all the rights and opportunities of that citizenship, not in theory but in practice. I repeat that the platitudes must be replaced by action.

Dame Angela Rumbold (Mitcham and Morden) : I have absolutely no quarrel with the philosophy that the right hon. Gentleman is putting forward--that we must treat all people in this country as equal citizens with equal opportunities. However, having listened carefully to what he said, I have a problem over how exactly he will persuade employers--unless he has some legal or governmental backing or requirement--to tell the world whether they have the correct number of black or Asian employees compared with other employees unless employers use the criterion that they are now using, which is to employ the person who is best qualified for the job.

Mr. Hattersley : The right hon. Lady began her intervention so courteously and supportively that I regret to have to tell her that, although she said that she was listening carefully to what I said, she was clearly not listening carefully enough. I set out and described--I will not bore the House by repeating it--the system of contract compliance which enables, say, the CRE to tell a large company, "We wish to inspect your record to make sure that your payroll is genuinely representative of the area from which you recruit."

I said that that required the ethnic monitoring to which the Home Secretary does not object in principle, since he allowed it at the Department of Health when he was a Minister there. It also requires the CRE to be able to say to a company that is not representative of the area from which it recruits, "Unless you use your best endeavours to recruit members of the ethnic minorities, you will certainly no longer qualify for Government contracts and you will be subject to the penalties that come from breaking the law that specifies fair employment practices." That happens in other countries. It is only because of the peculiar prejudices in this country that it has not been happening here for the last 20 years.

Ms. Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North) : My right hon. Friend has described precisely the problem confronting my local authority in Stoke-on- Trent. It wishes to do what he outlined, but is prevented from doing so because of the lack of legislation.

Mr. Hattersley : In my prejudiced way, I cited the example of Birmingham city council as an authority that has wanted to introduce certain policies and been prevented from doing so by the Government. Stoke is another example, and we know of other good local authorities that want to implement fair employment practices but have been prevented from carrying them out by the Government, who have had the nerve to table an amendment of undisguised piety on which we shall be required to vote at 7 o'clock.

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Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : The right hon. Gentleman courteously said that he wants this to be a level debate. We should therefore look for ways in which everyone can sort out the problems of racial discrimination. He will know that some changes can be made without legislation. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) pointed out that racism needs to be eradicated from the Labour party. Precisely what will the right hon. Gentleman do on behalf of his party to eradicate racism from the party, while the Conservative party looks for ways to encourage the Government to do as much as they can?

Mr. Hattersley : I suppose that I might just believe, in a moment of supreme charity, that that comment was intended to be constructive. But a more serious judgment would be that it was characteristically trivial. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I propose to say something worth saying.

The time for platitudes has gone and the time for action has come. The time has gone, too, for the figure manipulation which appears, by implication, in the amendment and which will no doubt be developed by the Home Secretary when he speaks. He draws the attention of the House and, he hopes, the country to the specific grants that have been made available for areas in which ethnic minorities have congregated. He must know that, putting aside those grants--most of them very small and all of them introduced with enormous fanfares--the loss of funds going into inner cities has been enormous and overwhelming because of the reduction of central Government general grant to local authorities.

As a result of that reduction, housing in central areas has deteriorated. School buildings have deteriorated and education committees have been unable to recruit extra teachers to teach English as a second language. Amenities in central areas have also deteriorated. The idea that the Government have put money at the disposal of local authorities that want to help in those matters is not simply untrue but the diametric opposite of the truth. The Government must decide in the next five years--I hope that they will feel calmer about making a decision in the knowledge that the general election is behind them--whether they believe in a multiracial society. In such a society, diversity is welcomed, not merely tolerated, and the culture, customs and religions of minority groups are respected. In such a society, laws accommodate minority religions and mores. Above all else, a multiracial society does not treat minorities as a problem.

Nothing has done so much harm to community relations in this country as the idea encouraged, I fear, by Government policies, that black and Asian British are a liability. They are not. The idea that ethnic minorities are a problem, with all its damaging results, has been encouraged by successive Home Secretaries. The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) was civilised, patrician and courteous about it. The Lord Waddington was not. The right hon. Member for Mole Valley saw it as a political opportunity. However, in their different ways, each fostered the disastrous notion that black and Asian British were such a detriment to society that the Government must use every power at their disposal to prevent any more of them from entering the country, whatever their legitimate claim for entry. I believe quite the opposite because of my experience. I spend much of my time on the Stratford road in the Birmingham constituency of Sparkbrook and I see how that road has been rehabilitated by the ethnic minorities :

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the shops are Asian ; the restaurants are Kashmiri ; the banks are Indian and Pakistani. They have rebuilt that heart in the centre of the community. Anyone who thinks that their entry into Birmingham is anything but an advantage is guided by pure, blind prejudice. I hope that there can be more positive understanding of that contribution. It must be related to our attitude towards immigration. These days when we speak of immigration we mean a process that is directly relevant to the lives of British citizens living in Britain. Primary immigration, whether or not it was right in the dying days of the empire, is now over for ever. The argument about immigration now involves British citizens living in Britain--the right of wives to be reunited with their husbands and the right of British citizens to be visited by their friends and relations--a right which is still too often denied to the black and Asian British.

One of my constituents is, on the evidence of a great national hospital, dying of cancer. His son has been refused permission to visit him as the immigration service, while accepting the diagnosis--it could hardly have done otherwise--doubts the son's motives for wishing to visit this country. I do not believe that that man would have been excluded from this country had he been white, and I fear that the figures confirm that unhappy conclusion. Last year, one Canadian out of every 4,219 applicants was refused a visitor's permit, whereas one in 32 Jamaicans was refused a temporary visa. The difference was not in the applicants' intentions but in the reaction of the immigration service.

If the Home Secretary truly intended to implement the high hopes of his amendment, he would send an immediate message to the immigration service, particularly those members serving in posts abroad. He would tell them that the Government do not expect them to use every means at their disposal to refuse application for entry, whatever the merits of the application. I have no doubt that the service believes that the present Government expect it positively to look for reasons why visa applications should be refused. That is the tone set by previous Home Secretaries, and by the Government appealing against a tribunal decision that judged a man to be improperly excluded. That impression was also given by the tone and character of the speeches made by the previous Home Secretary. The main reason for this debate is that the present Home Secretary has an opportunity to make it clear that he expects genuine applicants to be allowed entry into this country. I hope that he will say that in exact terms this afternoon.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : Is my right hon. Friend aware of the case highlighted in The Independent of a citizen from the United States who came over here? There was no reason to suspect that he was other than a visitor ; he was employed in the United States, where he had status and a home. However, he was refused entry and accused of being associated with the recent disturbances in America. There was no reason to disbelieve what he said, as he went out of the way to publicise his position. One can only conclude--as one of our former colleagues did in a letter to The Independent --that the man was refused entry because of his colour and had he been white there would have been absolutely no problem.

Mr. Hattersley : The problem with such examples is that they are all too frequent and we can all add to them. I shall

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take this opportunity to give another even more extraordinary example. A professor of economics who had been lecturing in Germany was flying back to Canada. On the aeroplane he met another professor of economics from this country. The English professor told him that he had a PhD student who specialised in a subject on which the Canadian professor had given his lecture.

The Canadian professor was persuaded to get off the aircraft at Heathrow to talk to the PhD student. The professor was immediately arrested, retained at Heathrow for two days and put on an aeroplane back to Canada. All the information about the professor's qualifications was available, but unfortunately he was black. It gives me no pleasure, but only regret, to state that had the professor been a white Canadian, that would not have happened to him.

I asked the Home Secretary to send a message to his officials, and I should like to hear him send a message to the rest of the public service, that its members should give equal treatment to all. We know--the evidence is depressingly extensive--that in social security offices all over Britain, black and Asian British are asked to prove their entitlement to benefit, whereas members of the majority community are not asked to do so. Evidence can also be provided to show that some officers refuse to issue national insurance numbers to members of ethnic minorities about to enter the labour market until they can prove that they are British by birth or registration. We believe that such practices are intolerable.

The Government should also make it clear that public housing must not be allocated according to rules that in any way discriminate against one group in society. The Liberal council in Tower Hamlets simply refused to rehouse Bangladeshi residents and its action was ruled unlawful in the High Court. No doubt later in the debate we shall hear that council action condemned. Some councils still have qualifying regulations which, by coincidence or by design, discriminate against minorities. Such regulations should be prohibited by law.

Ms. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar) : Is my right hon. Friend aware that Tower Hamlets council recently started to ask applicants who arrived at the homeless persons unit to prove their immigration status, thereby acting illegally as an immigration authority?

Mr. Hattersley : That will have to be the final intervention, because many hon. Members wish to speak. My hon. Friend's intervention illustrates the general point that there is a tendency by officialdom when confronted with a black, brown or yellow face to suspect that the person is not a genuine British citizen and to require him to prove his status. That should be prevented by law.

Ms. Liz Lynne (Rochdale) : Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the general election campaign some members of the Asian community in Rochdale were threatened and intimidated by some members of the Labour party? In one case, a man who was canvassing for the Liberal Democrats was told by a member of the Labour party that he would lose his grant unless he stopped such canvassing.

Mr. Hattersley : If that happened, I condemn it without qualification. I say "If it happened." I have named the

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Liberal council that discriminated openly and unlawfully against Bangladeshis and I hope that the hon. Lady or a more senior member of her party will condemn that action that she has described. Ms. Lynne rose --

Mr. Hattersley : I shall not give way to the hon. Lady again, as I want to make some progress.

There are still qualifying regulations in all areas which are imposed to require the black and Asian British to prove their status. That is wholly intolerable. The Government's belief that anything is justified in the name of immigration control was illustrated by one of the meanest acts in the history of British administration. Four years ago, some children who had been denied entry to this country, because the Government did not accept that they were related as claimed, proved through DNA tests that the Government were wrong. Those children who were still under 18 when the Government were confounded were allowed to enter Britain as the law required. However, the young men and women who had passed that age--the age at which admission is normally agreed--while undergoing the DNA tests to prove that the Government were in error were denied entry.

The only conclusion to be drawn from such petty tyranny is that the Government believe that they must keep the numbers down at all costs, irrespective of the device that is necessary to achieve that aim. That attitude sends quite the wrong signals to the ethnic minorities and to the wider population.

The second and even more damaging illustration of the official attitude to ethnic minorities concerns the reunion of husbands and wives. The immense suffering caused by that policy is, I fear, the product of the Government's failure to understand that marriage may be contracted in a variety of ways and still be lawful. In the official mind, the arranged marriage is confused with a bogus marriage. In a proper multiracial society the law would be able to accommodate marriage customs based on a variety of traditions. The primary-purpose rule by which applicants who wish to join their wives in Britain are judged is intellectually absurd and morally indefensible. A woman with British citizenship, who theoretically enjoys all the rights that such citizenship provides, is denied the right to live in this country with her lawful husband if, in the opinion of an immigration officer, the man's real object of coming here is to live in Great Britain. Simply stated, the immigration officer has the right in law to read an applicant's mind. Having formed a subjective opinion, the immigration authorities will allow entry only if on appeal the applicant can prove that the immigration officer misjudged and misread his mind. Normally and, I fear, intentionally that is an impossible task.

The case history of this provision shows how squalid the process has become. I have read case note after case note and they all read in a similar way. The applicant is asked his opinion of the United Kingdom. He answers, no doubt with the hope of ingratiating himself with the officer, that he has always admired the United Kingdom and always wanted to live here. On the evidence of that answer it is judged that he contracted the marriage only to enable him to live and work in the United Kingdom, and a legitimate and genuine marriage is separated, almost for ever.

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I emphasise that the marriages of which I speak are genuine. They have been contracted in ways to which hon. Members are not accustomed. However, it is the obligation of a multiracial society to accept and allow in law the mores of the minorites, rather than impose upon them the will and wishes of the majority. The genuine nature of the marriages is often demonstrated by years of separation and devotion.

Six months ago I proposed that the primary-purpose rule should be replaced by a more objective test of a marriage's genuine status. One of the criteria against which I wanted applicants to be judged was the constancy of the partners. I have constituents who were married five or six years ago. The husbands have been forced to remain in Pakistan and have seen their wives during a couple of brief holidays since the wedding. The wives have given birth to one or two children. The husbands have supported their families as best they can with remittances. Yet, the immigration service persists in saying that those couples are not genuinely married.

In the judgment in Kumar, the High Court required the Government to take into account what is described as intervening devotion. Some married couples have been reunited by taking the Government to court, obtaining judicial review and being brought together because of the judgment in Kumar. That is a long and often expensive process. It is time that the Government accepted that judgment from the beginning and applied it to all applicants who want to come and remain in this country.

The European Court is now considering a second specific case--the application of Mr. Surinder Singh. If, as is widely assumed, it finds in his favour, it will be possible for a British citizen whose spouse has been denied entry into Great Britain to live with his wife or her husband for a brief period in France or Germany and then move, without let or hindrance, into the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that already an English woman of Kashmiri origin can move to Paris or Rome and use Community law to be reunited with her husband from Pakistan immediately and without any qualification. If, as seems likely, Europe is to make nonsense of the primary-purpose rule, it would be to the Government's credit to take the initiative and do away with the dreadful thing immediately.

It is worth noting that the treatment thought appropriate to British women who marry foreign husbands is regarded by the European Community as unacceptable for citizens of other European countries. Britain is required to treat Community nationals better than we treat our own people. A French woman living in London who marries a citizen of what was once a French colony has the automatic and unfettered right to be joined in this country by her Moroccan or Algerian husband. A British woman does not have the same right to be joined in Britain by a Kenyan, Kashmiri or Indian husband. That is absurd as well as shameful. Nothing would so enhance the Home Secretary's reputation than for him to say today that he will bring that absurd shame to an immediate end.

The defence of the primary-purpose rule is that to replace it with objective criteria would result in some bogus marriages slipping through the net and, although it is rarely admitted, 100, 200 or 300 more young men would thus be allowed into this country. I make my position clear. The Government are so obsessed with keeping the wrong applicants out that they are always casual and sometimes callous about making sure that the right

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applicants get in. I am certainly prepared to accept the increase in numbers that would be involved in genuine marriages being reunited in this country in the way that they should be.

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hattersley : I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, who, I suspect, forgets that the general election is over. Nevertheless, I shall let him make his point about numbers.

Mr. Thurnham : I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and grateful to be here after the election. Will he clarify how he works out the figure of 300 extra people coming here if we abolish the primary-purpose rule ? That is humbug. Perhaps he remembers that on 5 April, before the election, The People issued an Asian edition and an English one. The front page of the Asian issue was plastered with the right hon. Gentleman's promises. He promised everything under the sun, including abolition of the primary-purpose rule. The English edition did not mention a word. Does not that show that the right hon. Gentleman has no answers and is trying to give different messages to different audiences ?

Mr. Hattersley : I am open to all sorts of accusations this afternoon, one of which is going on for too long, but the accusation that I have been trying to hide the immigration policies that I support seems difficult to sustain. I believe, and the hon. Gentleman can put it in his election manifesto in four or five years' time, that we must allow the entry of those men who are genuinely married and are genuinely separated from wives with whom they should be reunited. If that involves an increase in numbers, so be it. That is the necessity and obligation of a civilised society.

The test that the Government now face is their real belief in a multiracial society and, in consequence, their real belief in freedom. Sometimes, the ethnic minorities will wish to behave in a way that the majority population finds unnatural and uncomfortable. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise, for that is the nature of the multiracial society. I, for instance, am not an enthusiast for single-sex schools or for religious schools. I do not like the idea of single-sex secondary education or religious-based secondary education. The question is not whether we as individuals like or dislike a proposal but whether we are prepared to allow members of minorities to make decisions for themselves and to run their lives according to their traditions, religions and mores, as long as in doing so they do not damage the interests of the community as a whole.

I fear that our willingness to allow that freedom to ethnic minorities is singularly absent from Government policy. I fear that we have neglected the interests of those citizens in a way that is to this country's shame and may, over the years, rebound enormously to our practical and material disadvantage.

The motion demands that we accept that the black and Asian British are what they are--full and equal citizens of the United Kingdom, with all the rights that that implies and the share of resources that it should provide for them. Labour Members will go on proclaiming the necessity to change policy until that desirable situation is genuinely and fully brought about.

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4.17 pm

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) : I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Questioand to add instead thereof :

"commends the Government's determination to work towards a multi-racial society, to which all ethnic minority communities contribute fully and in which all enjoy equal opportunities, as evidenced by their policies for tackling racial discrimination and disadvantage and for promoting equal opportunities, and by expenditure programmes directed at the special needs of ethnic minorities."

I am open to correction in my understanding of the timing of these matters, but I think that I am right in saying that this may be the last appearance at the Dispatch Box of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). He shakes his head. I look forward to debating with him again. The world will change when that moment comes, because for as long as I have been a Member I have never seen the right hon. Gentleman make a speech from the Back Benches ; he has always been a Front Bencher. I therefore thought that he might have planned his swansong on this subject, and I was going to pay tribute to him. If he is now promising me an onslaught on another subject in the near future, I will gladly give way to him.

Mr. Hattersley : I was hoping that the Home Secretary would confirm that he will withdraw the representation of the people legislation that we are due to debate on Monday, when I hoped to debate with him again.

Mr. Clarke : The right hon. Gentleman is right to remind me of that, which at least will be a more partisan discussion.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly began by saying that I had puzzled over the motion before the House and wondered why he was raising ethnic minority issues when I thought that it might be his last speech, forgetting next Monday. I am now reassured that he wishes to make a speech on a matter about which he holds strong views, which, in principle, are not removed from mine.

The right hon. Gentleman is fairly critical of the fact that I thought his motion was partisan and therefore tabled an amendment to it. With respect, the right hon. Gentleman, probably like myself, does not have a non- partisan reputation in the House. He may think that his motion was disingenuous and a statement of the obvious, but I shall seek to persuade him and the House that, whatever problems may face the ethnic minorities, it is not true that they receive less than their fair share of national resources. The House must correct that notion. It is not altogether non- partisan to call on the Government to introduce and implement policies to eliminate the disadvantages of such citizens because the implication is that we have not already been doing that vigorously.

I shall seek to persuade the right hon. Gentleman and the House that not only is the Government amendment not merely a platitude--as he said-- because its sentiments are eminently fair, but that it is a more accurate statement of the position because it commends the Government and congratulates them on what they are doing and on having such forceful policies to tackle racial discrimination and disadvantage.

Nevertheless, it is important that we begin by putting on record what has not always been put on record either by the right hon. Gentleman or by other members of the Opposition. Hon. Members of all political persuasions are

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by and large agreed on the principles that should govern a multiracial, multicultural society. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I frequently face attacks, from Labour politicians in particular, suggesting that the Government's policies are racially motivated and that we discriminate in the policies that we adopt, but that is not the case. When that is said in the heat of political debate, it does not do the slightest good to race relations by encouraging that belief among ethnic minority constituents.

I think that the House agrees overwhelmingly on what should happen in a society such as ours. It should be acknowledged that we are talking about ways and means because we all agree that platitudes are not enough and that action is called for, as the right hon. Gentleman says. The Government's aim is to have a fair and integrated multiracial society. We are determined to stamp out racial discrimination so that all individuals, whatever their race, colour or creed, can have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities. We are prepared to debate the methods by which we achieve that, and that is what this debate should be about.

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : The Secretary of State will agree that it is most important to reconcile deeds with words, so will he reflect on the reduction of section 11 funding which has afflicted many parts of the country, including Bradford, and which has clearly adversely affected the disadvantaged, especially the ethnic minorities? Has he any plans to restore or, indeed, to increase the funding so that local authorities such as mine can actively assist ethnic minority communities?

Mr. Clarke : If I may, I shall deal more fully with section 11 later if I do not succumb to the same temptation as the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and give way too often. The total amount of section 11 funding has not been reduced, if one leaves aside an exceptional payment to clear some old ILEA claims, which was made, I think, two years ago. It is difficult to distribute the funding, but we have taken steps to target it better. I shall return to that matter in due course.

Let me deal with one or two issues that the right hon. Gentleman raised with regard to specific actions. I do not want to spend too long on asylum and immigration matters because we shall have plenty of opportunity to discuss them this Session when the Asylum Bill reappears before the House, which it will do shortly.

[Interruption.] It will shortly, and the reason is not that which I heard the right hon. Gentleman give the other day. It is because we have a longer Session ahead of us and after the election we are taking a look at asylum and immigration matters to ensure that when we reintroduce the Bill we have the opportunity to tackle all the deficiencies in the immigration and asylum system. We are also reflecting a little on some debates, especially those in another place.

I confirm that the guiding principle in dealing with immigration cases is that genuine cases whom this country is happy to admit, whether under the terms of our international obligations towards refugees or of our obligations to those who are entitled to come to this country as dependants, should be admitted. I should like them to be admitted in a more straightforward and less protracted way than is sometimes the case at present as a result of delays in the system which are inflicted on us by dealing with many less well-founded cases of people who are undoubtedly not entitled to come to this country.

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We must, therefore, examine the system to ensure that it is effective and fair, that it delivers prompter decisions, thereby enabling us to deal properly with those whom we are happy to welcome to our shores, and that it deals fairly within the rule of law with those whom we are not happy to welcome.

Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North) : Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) : Will the Home Secretary give way?

Mr. Clarke : I will give way just twice more, after which, as I said that I would not talk about immigration, I will not give way again. We shall otherwise spend the whole time on the subject.

Mr. John Carlisle : Does my right hon. and learned Friend appreciate that the delay in the introduction of the Asylum Bill is causing some concern to Conservative Members, despite the spurious objections by the Opposition? Will he confirm that the delay does not mean that the situation is worsening, and that it is actually rather better than it was when the Bill was introduced before the general election? Will he also confirm that he is confident that, when the Bill comes to the House, the situation will be more under control than it was in the earlier part of the year?

Mr. Clarke : The situation is slightly better than it was when the Bill was introduced because the number of applicants has come down. However, that cannot be relied on and the Bill's provisions are still required. There will be no great delay ; the Bill will be reintroduced. We are wholly committed to the policies we enunciated in the Bill before the election and we are taking the opportunity to look a little more widely to see what other causes of delay in the system can be tackled when the Bill is reintroduced. I assure my hon. Friend and most people interested in seeing our obligations under the convention carried out properly that we propose to introduce a Bill that will enable us to deal more promptly with those who are entitled to asylum here, and to reject more clearly and more quickly those who are not. That is in everyone's interests, and that principle could be, and properly should be, applied across the area of applications for immigration and settlement.

Mr. Vaz : Does the Home Secretary agree with the general principle put forward by the Foreign Secretary when he was Home Secretary and introduced the Immigration Bill? He said that good race relations in Britain depended on the maintenance of very strict and oppressive immigration controls. Does the Home Secretary also agree with the statement of his right hon. Friend on that occasion that the immigration service was providing a good customer service?

Mr. Clarke : I am absolutely certain that a slight misquotation of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary took place there. My views on the matter and those of my right hon. Friend are almost identical. I believe that good race relations in this country depend on the maintenance of a strict system of immigration control. They most definitely do not depend on an oppressive system. Reform, such as the Asylum Bill, is required to ensure that the system is not oppressive to the genuine cases because it is unable to cope with the non-genuine. That is the purpose of the reform.

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I believe that the immigration service provides a good service. The difficulty in the House when individual cases are cited, as we experienced a few minutes ago, is that it is not the way to approach the whole question of immigration policy. There is a system, which we seek to improve, under which there are prompt appeal hearings for the cases that will, undoubtedly, go wrong. However, newspaper accounts and partial accounts by people who have been turned away of why they believe they were turned away often prove to be incorrect. The case quoted by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) was answered by the head of the immigration service. The account of it in the newspapers was very partial and was given by a man who arrived with a huge collection of belongings, including his own car, for what he said was a short business visit.

Mr. Winnick : Do I take it that the Home Secretary studied the whole case? I recognise that the Home Secretary and his Ministers cannot study individual cases all the time, and I do not suggest that they should do so. However, in view of the publicity that the case received and the way in which the response came from the immigration service, may I take it that all the papers were looked at, if not by the Home Secretary, by his Ministers? There remains a good deal of disquiet, not only about this case, but about others such as that quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). There is a feeling that not all people are treated alike and that the question of colour comes into it.

Mr. Clarke : I can confirm that the case was examined very closely, because of the nature of the allegations. No Minister or member of the immigration service would accept a system of immigration control that worked unfairly and discriminately against someone purely because of that person's colour. That had been alleged, with the result that the case was examined carefully not only by the head of the immigration department but by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill (Mr. Wardle), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who now handles such matters and who took a close interest in the affair. I also considered it, to a slightly lesser extent ; I kept in touch with my hon. Friend.

We were entirely satisfied with the explanation that was given. If it is still contested, it will be open to the applicant to appeal. It is not helpful, however, to try to pour abuse on the whole system, relying on partial newspaper stories supplied by a journalist who listens to what the complainant says, but is not prepared to listen to explanations. We shall present legislation that will be fair to the genuine applicant--fair to everyone, indeed--but the system will be governed by the rule of law. We shall seek to get rid of the delays, the legalisms and some of the wilder allegations.

The primary-purpose rule is subject to litigation at present, as the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has said. I know that he has always felt strongly about the issue, but I do not agree with what he said about the logic of the case. He challenged me to produce a logical justification. In my opinion, arguments about whether marriages are bogus are, to an extent, immaterial. It is not for me, or for any other Minister in this or any other Government, to express views about whether arranged marriages are a good or a bad thing ; we all have our views on that, but it is not what lies behind the rule. People are

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free to marry for whatever reason they choose. In my experience, people have married for a variety of reasons, not all of which have struck me as frightfully good--but that is the ultimate civil liberty, which is available to everyone regardless of background.

It is perfectly logical for a country or a Parliament to object if two people from different countries marry and the main reason for the marriage- -there may, of course, be others--has nothing to do with romantic or family attachment. If the marriage is intended to enable a man who otherwise would not be allowed to live here to enter the country for that purpose, surely there is nothing illogical in telling that man, "Of course you are free to marry, but that does not necessarily allow you to get around immigration controls that should apply to you."

We can argue about individual cases. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, for instance, has said that he knows of cases in which the wrong decision was made. The argument, however, does not apply only to Indian men and arranged marriages ; there are also the so-called mail-order brides, south- east Asian women who marry Englishmen. I do not consider it illogical to introduce a rule that allows people to enter into such marriages if they wish to do so, but makes it clear that it is not necessarily just for immigration rules to be "collapsed" so that someone whose principal purpose in marrying is to get around the immigration rules can gain admission. We shall wait to find out what the litigation produces, but I do not share the right hon. Gentleman's strong views in this regard.

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